


Famous Owens: Star of the Show

by AParticularlyLargeBear



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hades Tigers (Blaseball Team)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 16:55:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30058617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParticularlyLargeBear/pseuds/AParticularlyLargeBear
Summary: A columnist examines the mysterious Famous Owens, and their impact on the Season 12 ILB finals.
Kudos: 11





	Famous Owens: Star of the Show

**Author's Note:**

> Had a lot of thoughts about Famous Owens and thought it would be fun to make them into an article. As a Tigers fan, Famous is utterly unpredictable: it's impossible to know what you're going to get. In season 12, that manifested more than ever.

Famous Owens of the Hades Tigers has rarely ranked among the luminaries of ILB pitching, in spite of his 13-season career in the league. At times, they have dazzled, at others, single handedly cost their team games. Many a time, the Tigers have eked out victories in spite of Owens, rather than with him. Analysts have claimed that Owens’ scouting report shows he has missed his calling as a batter: it was 10 seasons before a pair of blessings placed his pitching on a comparable star rating to his hitting.

Nonetheless, a career pitcher Owens has been. Mercurial, but never dull. In equal measure, they are admired and maligned by the Tigers, and perhaps that is indication of a fanbase that does not know how good they have it. Many teams in ILB history would be ecstatic to count a pitcher like Owens as their third best. Few are fortunate enough to call upon the talents of dynamic duo Wilcox and Figueroa. In another rotation, Owens would be above average: they are above average, by any metric. As a career Tiger, however, it seems that they have worn a comfortable groove of swingy performances, winning more than most pitchers, but never the primary weapon in the Tigers’ arsenal. 

Season 12. Playoffs. Owens takes the mound against the Wild Wings, Tigers up 2-1. He sends the Wings home in a shutout.

Semi-finals. A rematch against the vaunted Sunbeams offence which annihilated the Tigers’ rotation this time last season. In season 11, Owens gave up 22 runs across two games. Today? Shutout. The Tigers advance.

The finals. Seattle versus Hades. In a season where pitching has risen to the fore, fans and analysts dissect the matchups. They circle the games: Wilcox versus Morin, Figueroa versus Marijuana. These are the games the Tigers win. The question of the series is prewritten: can the Tigers pick up a victory in one of the remaining three games, with Melcon or Owens at the helm? Can the Garages overcome the deficit of defeats against Wilcox and Figueroa at their best?

Game one. 4-2 Garages in extra innings. Spacemen versus Melcon.

Game two. 6-4 Tigers in 15 innings. Wilcox versus Morin.

Attention turns to game three. Consensus is that this should be the Tigers’ win: Lenny Marijuana may be riding high after an astonishing shutout of the Fridays earlier in the playoffs, but Dunlap Figueroa is in the midst of a career season. Lightning will not strike twice.

It does not. Instead, Figueroa experiences one of her intermittent but always spectacular meltdowns, giving up 2 walks and 8 runs en route to her worst performance of the entire season. 2-1, Garages.

Panic stations in Hades. Now they have no room for error, and they’re going into the toughest pitching matchup of the series. Famous Owens versus the excellent Pitching Machine. PM is having a great season. Owens is up against a lineup that just dismantled Figueroa and gave Wilcox trouble. This could be Seattle’s night, and Seattle’s championship.

The Garages pick up a single run off a bunt at the bottom of the ninth. 7-1. Series evened up. 

Hades goes on to win, and Mummy Melcon deservedly takes home accolades for her pitching in the grand final, but without Owens, that game five would never have been possible. An enigmatic wink to the cameras, a quiet, private smile at the edge of the team’s celebrations, and Famous Owens, the architect of a fantastic championship run, departs the stage.

The first game Owens pitches in Season 13, he drops the Tigers into a four run hole against the Jazz hands, immediately concedes two more after the Tigers pull ahead, and the team requires a top of the ninth three run homer to take victory.

Some things never change.


End file.
